6 movies that flopped so hard they killed other movies

George Clooney’s $190 million science fiction film, “Tomorrowland,” opened on Memorial Day weekend with high expectations to fulfill. Its $43 million domestic box office take made it the highest-grossing movie of the weekend, but after the following weekend, its total haul stood at $63 million.

Walt Disney Studios concluded that the movie had underperformed, but didn’t stop there. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio also responded by reassessing its upcoming slate of live-action properties, and cancelled plans for a third “Tron” movie.

This may seem like an unnecessarily harsh response, but it’s not uncommon. Audience response to one movie can mean life or death for another one, so if one underperforms, a planned sequel or even a completely unrelated project might not get made.

Here’s a look at a few movies whose box office performance or critical reception took others down with them. All data is from Box Office Mojo unless otherwise noted.

Brad Pitt edges out George Clooney for film rights to Chevron-Donziger story

Brad Pitt’s production company has edged out George Clooney’s to win the film rights to a book about the epic, fraud-marred Ecuadorian environmental suit against Chevron CVX, according to two sources with indirect knowledge of the situation.

The book, Law of the Jungle, by Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Paul Barrett, chronicles the story behind the 22-year-old-and-counting court battle over pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon, allegedly left behind by Texaco—bought by Chevron in 2001—when it drilled for oil there between 1964 and 1992. The litigation campaign, largely led by screen-o-genic New York attorney Steven Donziger, culminated in an $18.2 billion judgment against Chevron from a provincial court in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, in 2011, later pared back to $9.5 billion by Ecuador’s highest court.

Barrett’s book, which came out last September, also chronicles the lurid chicanery that led a Manhattan federal judge to rule in March 2014 that Donziger had procured his blockbuster judgment through a pattern of racketeering activity, including bribery, fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice, and other offenses. Among other things, Donziger and his co-counsel are alleged to have ghostwritten the multi-billion-dollar judgment themselves, having obtained that opportunity by promising the trial judge $500,000 to be paid from moneys eventually recovered. (I have previously summarized some of the key allegations against Donziger in this opinion piece.)

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan barred the plaintiffs from trying to enforce the judgment in the United States—a significant step because Chevron has virtually no assets in Ecuador—and issued orders aimed at trying to prevent Donziger from benefiting from his wrongdoing. (Donziger has appealed Kaplan’s judgment, but his attorneys have focused on legal issues and have not, for the most part, contested Kaplan’s factual findings. Donziger has, however, denied personal participation in bribing the judge.)

Barrett sold the option late last summer, though the sale has not previously been reported. In interviews for this article Barrett and his literary agent, Stuart Krichevsky, both declined to confirm (or deny) that Pitt’s production company, Plan B Entertainment, optioned the book. Barrett did acknowledge, though, that an option has been sold to someone, and that the studio that bought it edged out a competing offer from George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures, which, he said, had been considering pitching a miniseries to HBO.

“I was very flattered that George Clooney and his producing partner [Grant Heslov] indicated interest in buying an option on the book,” Barrett says, “but ultimately we decided to do business with another very eminent Hollywood production company.” He continues: “I had these two amazing opportunities and had to choose one. So I did.”

Barrett declined to discuss the terms of the sale.

A call to Plan B and emails to its co-presidents, Jeremy Kleiner and DeDe Gardner, were not returned.

Pitt is known to have been interested in the Lago Agrio pollution for several years, and has visited Ecuador with his wife, Angelina Jolie, to observe the situation and meet with Donziger’s team.

In a statement, Donziger’s publicist, Karen Hinton, said: “At this point, neither Brad Pitt nor his production company own the rights to the story of any of the key participants in the lawsuit, including Steven Donziger, Luis Yanza, Pablo Fajardo, and others. There is simply no way any production company can make an accurate and compelling film about the Ecuador pollution lawsuit without these rights.”

Donziger has sharply attacked Barrett’s book and a nearly contemporaneous ebook, Crude Awakenings, written by American Lawyer senior international correspondent Michael Goldhaber, alleging inaccuracies and bias. Donziger mounted those attacks, which I have assessed here, even though both books are highly sympathetic to the plight of his clients—the residents of polluted region—and Barrett’s book was receptive to a great many of Donziger’s legal and factual contentions.

In Barrett’s case, Donziger also wrote what he characterized as a “notice of defamation,” which he sent to Barrett’s publisher, Crown Publishers, and then disseminated publicly. Donziger even caustically criticized New York Times columnist Joe Nocera for merely writing a column cautiously recommending Barrett’s book. (Donziger has also denounced my own writings as “dishonest” ever since September 2010, when I wrote that “credible and weighty allegations of fraud” had been leveled in the case as it stood at that point.)

A third book about Donziger’s handling of the Lago Agrio case was also written last year: Judge Kaplan’s 485-page, 1,842-footnote opinion in Chevron v Donziger. But Kaplan’s work is in the public domain, so no studio need court him for rights.

Two notes of caution. First, actors’ production companies very often make films that do not star the proprietor-actors’ themselves. Pitt’s Plan B, for instance, was among the producers of last year’s Oscar Best Picture nominee, Selma, and the HBO movie The Normal Heart, neither of which starred Pitt.

Second, and more important, it’s well known that most optioned properties are never actually made into movies.

Still, given Pitt’s longstanding interest in the case, the wrenching emotional and moral issues raised by it, the historic legal landmark it once seemed to represent, the jaw-dropping accusations of skullduggery and corruption that have marred it, and the visually stunning setting in which it has played out, this particular narrative seems truly destined for the screen.

Meet the new trophy husbands

Back when Fortune coined the term “trophy wife” in 1989, the phrase was used to describe the young, beautiful and accomplished second-wives of powerful men. In 2002, when Fortune used the phrase”trophy husband,” it was meant as ironic wordplay. The powerful women’s trophy in the early 00s was a loyal and loving helpmate, standing behind the great woman, cooking a killer beef wellington, driving carpools and coaching soccer.

Many of these early trophy husbands were retirees: see the husbands of Carly Fiorina, Xerox Chair and CEO Ursula Burns, earlier Xerox chair and CEO Anne Mulcahy, and former JPMorgan Chase CFO Dina Dublon. They put their careers on hold to nurture their wives’ ambitions and tend to the kids.

“These guys may be every working woman’s definition of trophy,” Fortune wrote in 2002.

Now, in 2015, maybe not so much. Stay-at-home dads are every bit as treasured, but not mind-blowing anymore. Couples shift bread-winning roles and arrangements around. Dads may not make up the majority at the playground, but their presence there doesn’t raise eyebrows, either.

Today these accomplished, wealthy, ambitious “alpha” women have attractive, important men in their own right, who don’t mind being eclipsed on occasion. Powerful women in 2015 can command what men did, when Fortune first coined the term ‘trophy wife’ in 1989 — an attractive, accomplished mate still willing to take a backseat to their companion’s glorious achievements. He’s a multi-dimensional status symbol in a high-powered relationship between equals.

As society becomes “more gender-neutral, an alpha woman is going to be highly desired and sought after as a partner,” says Sonya Rhodes, PhD, a couples therapist in New York and author, with Susan Schneider, of The Alpha Woman Meets Her Match: How Today’s Strong Women Can Find Love and Happiness Without Settling (HarperCollins, 2014). “Women always wanted sexy men who are accomplished. The cultural transformation is that the men have changed: Some alpha men admire and support successful women. Successful, sexy men can handle equally sexy, successful women.”

That’s not to say downshifting spouses, who do the caregiving, work from home or part-time or not at all, aren’t as important as ever for some women’s leadership. Dawn Lepore, a four-time Fortune MPW and former Charles Schwab CIO, relied on one. Other business leaders reported to have partners who were at one time stay-at-homers, though some may bristle at discussing it, include ex-WellPoint chief Angela Braly and IBM CEO and Chair Ginni Rometty.

What’s certain, says therapist and author Rhodes: “The cultural winds are shifting and the ideal relationship is a partnership.”